The Last Tudor Page 6

  As if I have said nothing, as if they are deaf to a refusal, they crowd closer on their knees. It is nightmarish. They rise; they come one after another to bow low and kiss my hand. I would pull my hands away, but my mother supports me with an arm around my back and a grip on my armpit. Lady Dudley holds my hand outstretched so that these great strange men can press their fleshy lips on my clenched fist. I am choking on my sobs, the tears pouring down my face, but no one remarks on it. “I can’t,” I wail. “It is Princess Mary who must inherit. Not me.”

  I twist in their hold. I think they will drag me to the scaffold. I defied my cousin Mary once when I insulted her faith. I dare not do it again. To claim the throne is an act of treason, punishable by death. I dare not do it. I will not do it.

  The doors of the great hall open and my father and Guildford come in together. “Father!” I cry out, as if to my savior. “Tell them that I cannot be queen!”

  He comes to my side and I feel the intense relief of a rescued child. I think that he will save me from this misery and tell them all that it cannot be. But he too bows low to me, as he has never done before, and then he says in his sternest voice: “Jane, you were named queen by our late beloved king. It was his right to name you; it is your duty to accept the inheritance he has given you. It is your God-given duty.”

  I give a little scream. “No! No! No, Father! No!”

  My mother tightens her grip on my shoulders and gives me a little shake. “Be quiet,” she snaps in an undertone. “You were born for this. You should be glad.”

  “How can I?” I choke on my sobs. “I can’t! I can’t!”

  Wildly, I look around the stern faces for anyone who might understand and take my part. Guildford comes close to me and takes my hand. “Be brave,” he says. “This is a great opportunity for us. This is wonderful. I am so proud of you.”

  I look at him blankly, as if he were speaking Russian. What does he mean? What is he saying? He gives his pretty-child smile and then releases me and moves towards his mother. No one cares that I refuse, nobody hears that I will not take the throne. They will crown me with or without my consent. I am like a trapped hare with one foot in a snare. I can twist and turn, I can scream, but nothing will save me.

  THE TOWER, LONDON,

  JULY 1553

  I wear a new gown of gold-embroidered green velvet. They must have had it made in my size in secret, waiting for this day. When they lace the bodice round my waist, I think it is as tight as a noose around my neck. That is when I know for sure that this is no surprise bequest from a dying cousin, the act of a moment; this is a plan that has been made for some time; the dressmaker was told the measure of my waist many months ago. My father-in-law, John Dudley, the leader of the council, will have directed this gowning, this crowning, my father agreed to it, and all the lords of the council swore to it, and then my poor weary cousin Edward made it his own and commanded them to turn against his half sister Mary, the rightful heir.

  My mother consented to be passed over in my favor. She will have wrestled with her pride for weeks. All of them have had months to still their consciences—if they ever had any. But I have to take my fears to God and wrestle with my God-given duty in just a few days, and now I have to put on my new gold-embroidered green gown, get into the royal barge, sit on the throne under the golden canopy, and be rowed with the royal pennants flying, to the Tower, to prepare for my coronation.

  I have only ever been in the royal barge as a companion to my cousin, but now I sit on the central throne, and feel how the cold wind comes off the river to this exposed seat. When we come alongside the quay, there are hundreds of people, all along the riverbank and inside the Tower, staring at me, and I feel ashamed to be stepping from the barge and going to the Lion Gate under borrowed colors. I am surprised how glad I am to have Guildford at my side to accompany me in my lonely terror. He takes my hand to walk with me, and then steps back to let me go before him, as prettily as if we were dancing at our wedding. I am glad of the canopy over my head, as if it will shield me from the sight of God as I walk towards treason. My mother, walking behind me, holds my train, pulling at it left and right, like a plowman steering a reluctant horse, slapping the reins to force it to harrow the heavy earth.

  As we go into the shelter of the Tower I see that there are more crowds of people waiting to greet me. Crowded among the group of ladies is my sister Katherine. Her bewildered gaze meets mine.

  “Oh, Jane,” she says.

  “You call her ‘Your Majesty,’ ” my mother snaps, and she flips the train of my gown as if she is throwing the reins.

  Katherine bows her golden head in obedience but looks up at me, her blue eyes astounded, as I walk by. She falls into step behind me, her pale-faced husband tagging along with her. We go to the royal chambers, and I flush with embarrassment as we thrust ourselves rudely into Edward’s private rooms, into the royal chapel, into the royal bedchamber. I can’t see how I can be here; I certainly shall not sleep here—how could I sleep in the king’s bed! Everything that belonged to him has been hastily stripped out and the floor swept, and fresh rushes put down, as if he had been dead for months and not for four days. But even so, I feel as if he might walk in at any moment and I will be shamed to be caught posing in his chair.

  But these are no longer Edward’s rooms, his private rooms; they have to be mine, and as we stand there, awkwardly displaced, the door bangs open and the grooms of the royal wardrobe heave in a cavalcade of great chests of gowns and jewels from the wardrobe and treasury. All the beautiful gowns worn by Kateryn Parr are here. I remember her in them. The capes that belonged to Anne of Cleves, the Seymour pearls, the French hoods of Anne Boleyn, the Spanish goldwork of the very first queen, dead before I was born. The only gowns that fit me are the pretty little ones that belonged to Katherine Howard, beheaded for treason when she was only a few years older than me, forced into marriage like me, named as a queen before she had learned to be a woman grown.

  “Beautiful shoes,” Guildford says, showing me the embroidery and the diamonds on the toes.

  “I won’t wear a dead girl’s shoes,” I say with a shudder.

  “Then cut the diamonds off and give them to me.” Guildford laughs. He is plunging into the chests like a puppy dragging out toys. His mother smiles indulgently as he balances a jeweled hat on his fair head and swings a velvet cape around his shoulders.

  Katherine looks at me, her blue eyes wide. “Are you all right?” she asks me.

  “Leave them alone,” I say irritably to Guildford. “I’m not going to wear old furs and jewels.”

  “Why not?” he demands. “They’re the royal goods. Why wouldn’t we look our best? Who has a better right than us?”

  I turn to Katherine. “I think I’m all right,” I say unsteadily. “You?”

  “They say I’m your heir,” she says feebly. “They say I am the next queen after you.”

  I can’t help it, I let out a little scream of laughter. “You are to take the throne if I am dead?” I demand.

  Her face is like a doll’s, frozen and pretty, blank without thought. “I hope not,” she says feebly. “For both of us.”

  Her hand goes to the pocket of her cape.

  “Have you got Ribbon the kitten in there?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “I’m not allowed.”

  William Paulet the ancient Marquess of Winchester steps forward with a leather box edged with gold at the corners and fastened with a gold hasp. I look at him as if he is bringing me an asp.

  “I thought you should try the crown,” he says with a toothless grin. “Try it!”

  “I don’t want it!” I exclaim with sudden revulsion. It is Edward’s crown; there is not a doubt in my mind that it should be Princess Mary who wears it next. “I don’t want it!”

  “I’ll wear it,” Guildford says suddenly. “Give it to me. I’ll try it.”

  “We’ll get another size for you,” the marquess says, smiling at my husband. “This is too small
for you. This was worn by Anne Boleyn at her coronation.”

  How can such a thing be other than cursed? The last queen to wear it was dead within three years of their slapping it on her head. I take Guildford by the arm and pull him away from the open box and the golden crown, heavy with jewels. “You cannot be crowned king,” I say quietly to him. “Only if parliament asks it, and I endow you with it. You are not named as Edward’s heir. I am. If I am to be the queen, you have to be my husband, not a king.”

  “Guildford is king consort,” his mother interrupts me, coming behind us. “He’ll be crowned king at your side.”

  “No.” I feel, wildly, that this is worse than my usurpation. I, at least, am Tudor. I, at least, am in line. My line at least was named in King Henry’s will. But Guildford is the grandson of a tax collector executed for treason. He cannot take the throne: the idea is ridiculous. It is to insult the royal line. “My cousin the king nominated me, through my mother. If you crown Guildford, it is obvious that we are not acting as the royal line, but from sinful ambition. My cousin was ordained by God in his kingship. I inherit from him. I am a Tudor and a queen. Guildford is nothing more than a Dudley.”

  “You will find the Dudleys are the greatest family in the land! You will learn that my husband is the kingmaker!” his mother rounds on me fiercely. “We have made you queen, and we will make our Guildford king.”

  “Not so! I passed over my inheritance to Jane!” My mother raises her voice and comes swiftly to my side. “It is Jane who is to take the throne. Not your son.”

  “Now look what you’ve started!” Guildford whispers furiously to me. “You’re such a fool! I am your husband! Why wouldn’t you crown me? I am your master, you have sworn to obey me, how can I be anything less than a king when you are queen? And now look! You have upset my mother.”

  “I can’t help that! I have prayed on this, Guildford. God has called me to this great place. I don’t want it, but I can see that He has called me to test my faith. But He has not called you. He did not call you. You are not the heir: I am.”

  White with rage, he cannot find the words to answer me. “Disobedient wife!” he spits at me. “Unnatural! That is treason alone! Never mind the rest of it!”

  “Don’t say that word!” his mother hisses at him as he turns on his heel and flings himself from the room. She gives him a furious look and rushes after him. I am left trembling with temper and distress, the open box with Anne Boleyn’s crown on the table before me and my sister, wide-eyed, staring at me.

  The Marquess of Winchester, who started all this with his foolish promise of a crown for Guildford, turns to my uncle Henry FitzAlan the Earl of Arundel, and William Herbert, Katherine’s father-in-law, raising his eyebrows as if to ask how the country is to be ruled by a warring family. “I thought all this had been agreed?” he asks slyly.

  “It is agreed,” Katherine’s father-in-law says swiftly. He, for one, wants no difficulties; this is his plot too. His son, at his side, nods as if he knows anything about it.

  “It was not agreed by me,” I say. I suddenly feel the hand of God spread over me, I suddenly know my own mind. I am not a fool and I know the right thing to do here. I am no longer drowning in fear; I can see my way. “I will accept the crown, since it is God’s will that I should, since I can do God’s work. But there is no such destiny for Guildford. It is I who inherit the crown from King Edward, God bless him, and Guildford, my husband, takes the throne at my side.”

  I sense, rather than see, that my sister Katherine has drawn a little closer, as if to say that she is here as my heir, that we are the girls of royal blood who are named to inherit. We are not fools or pawns. My husband will not be crowned king; her husband will not be crowned king.

  “But he has to have a title,” Katherine’s father-in-law remarks thoughtfully. “A royal title. After all . . .”

  He does not finish, but we all know that he might say—after all, the Duke of Northumberland would hardly do all this just to put Henry Grey’s daughter on the throne. Who cares for me, after all? How would my accession benefit the Dudleys? Guildford must get a title from this day’s work, at least; his family will want their fee. Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the Dudleys are greedy bullocks.

  “I shall make him a duke,” I offer. “That’s a royal title. He shall be Duke of Clarence.”

  The last Duke of Clarence was drowned in a vat of malmsey in this very place, for his overweening ambition. I don’t care if they make the comparison.

  I sleep with Katherine my sister in the royal bed, one of my ladies on a truckle bed on the floor beside us, the silky sheets warmed for me with a golden pan, the mattress stabbed in case of a hidden killer. Guildford does not come to me, and in the morning my stomach pain is worse and I wake to find that my course has come and I am bleeding.

  Katherine leaps out of bed and strips back the covers. “How disgusting!” she says. “Why would you do this? Didn’t you know your course was coming?”

  “No,” I say. “It doesn’t always come at the same time. How would I know it would come now?”

  “You couldn’t have chosen a worse time or place.”

  “I hardly chose it!” Of course, this has never happened before in the king’s rooms: there has never been a queen in these rooms, in this bed. All the queens live in the queen’s apartments. Katherine and I have to bundle the soiled sheets out to the laundry, and the groom of the linen looks disgusted. I am so terribly shamed. We have to send for clean petticoats and a bowl for me to wash, and they bring jugs of hot water and scented towels. I feel so disgraced that when I finally get to chapel, I put my face in my hands and pray to God that I bleed to death and am released from this terrible duty.

  As soon as I get to the presence chamber and seat myself on the throne I receive a message from my mother-in-law. One of her ladies comes in and curtseys low—a royal curtsey—rises up, and tells me that Her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland will not be attending court this morning, and that she and her son Lord Guildford are retiring to their house at Syon.

  “Because I will not make him king?” I ask bluntly.

  The woman blinks at my frankness. “My lord Guildford says that it is not enough to be a duke, and if he is not a king, then, clearly, he cannot be married to the queen.”

  “He is leaving me?” I ask incredulously.

  She blushes at the terrible snub. She drops into a curtsey again and stays down, her eyes on the floor.

  I feel again the furious determination that I now recognize is God working through me. He gives me strength. He gives me clarity. I turn to my uncle Henry FitzAlan the Earl of Arundel, standing at my side. “Please go to my lord husband and tell him that his queen commands that he stay at court,” I say through gritted teeth. “And tell Her Grace his mother that I expect her here also. Neither of them may leave without permission. They know that.”

  He bows to me and leaves the room. I look around at the other lords; some of them are hiding their smiles. I know that I will be shamed by my blood leaking out and staining my gown if I don’t get away to the garderobe at once. I look at Katherine for help and she looks back at me blankly. She has no idea what to do. “I am unwell,” I say. “I am going to my privy rooms.”

  They all drop to their knees and I walk past them, my ladies following. I can barely stand with the pain in my belly, and I walk with a stupid sort of sideways sidle, trying not to let the blood leak out; but I force myself to get to the royal chambers, and I don’t cry from pain and fury till the door is shut and I am alone.

  I have never bled so heavily, I have never felt so sick. “I am being poisoned,” I whisper to my maid as she takes away the bloody napkins and the rust-colored water. “There is something terribly wrong.”

  She looks at me, her mouth agape. She does not know what to do. Overnight she finds herself in service to the Queen of England, and now I tell her that I am being murdered. Nobody knows what to do.

  THE T
OWER,

  LONDON, JULY 1553

  It gets worse rather than better. My brother-in-law the sinfully handsome Robert Dudley has failed to arrest Princess Mary—or Lady Mary, as we now all have to call her. He is riding around Norfolk on a string of handsome horses, making sure that no one goes to help her; but he has not taken her into his keeping.

  Half the lords tell me that she is certain to flee to Spain and this must be prevented at all costs for she will bring a papist army down on us, to the destruction of ourselves and the damnation of all of England. The other half say that she must be allowed to leave, so that she is exiled forever and there is no one to lead a rebellion against me. But instead of either of these, she does the one thing that is the very worst for us, the one thing that nobody predicted a woman could do: she raises her standard at her great house at Kenninghall and writes to my council and tells them that she is the true queen and that they will be pardoned for their treason if they admit her to London and the throne at once.

  This is the worst thing for the righteous cause of reform. I know that God does not want her to take the throne, and that all her promises of allowing all faiths, and not forcing her heresy on the good Christians of England who have so recently seen the light, are part of the devil’s work to undo all that Kateryn Parr believed, that Edward achieved, and that I have sworn to continue. Princess Mary cannot take the country back to Rome and destroy our chance of creating a kingdom of saints. I am bound by God to oppose her, and I insist that someone muster an army and go and capture her. If she has to be imprisoned in the Tower for treason, so be it. She has had every opportunity to get a better understanding of the Word of God; she studied with Kateryn Parr just as I did, but she persisted in error. If we capture her and the council insists that she has to die for treason against the throne, against me, then so be it. I will find the courage to send her, and all heretics, to the scaffold. I will not be a weak link in the mighty army of God. I am called, I am chosen, I will suffer affliction as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, I will not be called and found wanting.